


Thirty Pieces of Silver

by manic_intent



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Soldier of Fortune AU, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:29:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the avengers meme, which asked for an AU where Thor was kicked to earth a long time before the movie, so that the 'soldier of fortune' assessment by Coulson is actually true.  Or in which Tony's Epic Strategy to Get Into Agent Blake's Pants doesn't always go well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirty Pieces of Silver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thecat_13145](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecat_13145/gifts).



> This was such a fun prompt! :) Thanks OP!

I.

Fury runs a tight ship, even in the faux-kidnapper-warehouse that Coulson had marched him into for the epic bitching session, and while he's being marched out again, hands closely watched, Tony nearly walks right into some sort of Greek God. 

"Agent Blake," Coulson greets the newcomer, robot-neutral as always, even as Tony blatantly stares. 

He's done his run of a brat pack of Hollywood stars on both sides of the fence, but _this_ gorgeous embodiment of male perfection is something else altogether. Agent Blake is tall, taller even than Fury, broad-shouldered and leonine, tawny hair worn shoulder-length and a beard verging on whiskery, in sharp contrast from the other clean-shaven SHIELD drones. He's dressed more like SHIELD security than the other agents that Tony's seen: a kevlar vest over a sinfully tight black shirt that bares thickly muscled arms up to black fingerless gloves, gray fatigues tucked into thigh-high combat boots. 

Agent Blake is openly armed, with a pistol in an under-arm holster and, rather incongruously, some sort of plain iron-headed mallet strapped to his hip. No, not iron, Tony corrects himself, as he watches the pull of it against its strap-sheath and guesses at the weight. Some sort of titanium alloy, probably. 

"Agent Coulson," Blake returns, and grins, like he's amused at some private SHIELD joke, a spark of humour in his eyes and his mouth crinkling further into a lopsided smile and _Gods_ , Fury had to be running some sort of secret beauty agency, Tony thinks, dazed all of a sudden. First Natasha, now Blake. Maybe the Director's finally figured out the entirety of Tony's weaknesses.

Still, Tony's mouth is pretty good at auto, even if his brain's been sidelined by scientific discovery, alcohol or beautiful people, and Tony manages a smile, an outstretched hand, and a bright, "Hi, I'm Tony Stark. I didn't catch your first name, Agent...?"

"No, you didn't, Mister Stark." Blake shakes his hand firmly, with _just_ the suggestion of an easy strength, enough to make Tony go weak at the knees, then he glances over at Coulson like Tony isn't even there, and okay, that hurts a little, maybe. "The Director?"

"Through there," Coulson gestures, as neutral as ever, though Tony can sourly sense that Agent Uptight Dickwad is secretly amused, somehow, and Blake nods at them both, striding past, his gait lupine and silent, and Tony could definitely, definitely think of some uses for that kind of natural grace. 

"Mister Stark?" Coulson prompts politely, as Tony eyes the nice curve of Blake's ass, even through combat fatigues, all the way until it disappears into the Melodramatic Warehouse Room. 

"Who's that?" Tony doesn't move, up until Coulson takes a firm hold of his elbow, the slight pressure of his fingers suggesting that tasering or dismemberment is likely to follow if Tony doesn't cooperate. 

"One of our field agents," Coulson could give lawyers lectures on effective yet frustratingly tantalising non-disclosure. "A specialist." No, he could probably deliver an entire fucking _treatise_. 

"I can see that," Tony grits his teeth. He can and will be patient. He's a connoisseur of the wonderful and beautiful, whether it's a fragment of Sh'iar transdimensional tech or someone who's totally rocking combat fatigues and boots. "I've been to SHIELD facilities before, and I've never seen him around."

"SHIELD employs a lot of agents," Coulson observes serenely. The man might look like a pencil-pusher but he has a fuckload of upper arm strength, and Tony's almost being dragged across the tastefully polished concrete floor. Repurposed warehouse, his ass. 

"Could I trade Miss Romanov in for that one?" Tony tries a winning smile. "I'll do something for SHIELD, gratis. Ergonomic chairs? No? Ergonomic chairs that fire tasers?" 

The littlest hint of a smirk cracks the edges of Coulson's mouth. Asshole. "I'll convey your comments to the Director, Mister Stark," he notes, somehow inserting condescension into a monotone, and Tony scowls, his ego duly bruised. He's going to find a way to sign SHIELD on as a Stark Industries key client whether they like it or not.

"Then I'll be in touch," Tony retorts, as loftily as he can, and sulks all the way back to the Stark Industries helicopter waiting for him at the helipad.

He complains to Pepper when he's back at Stark Tower, and she laughs at him. She's no longer CEO, Tony tells her, bristling, but she only laughs harder. "Phil's got quite a way with words," Pepper manages, when she finally settles, dabbing suspiciously at her eyes.

"Phil? Who's Phil?"

"Phil Coulson?"

"Why is my secretary-business-partner-minder on a first-name basis with a guy who repeatedly threatens to tase me? And are you sure that his first name isn't 'Asswipe'?" Tony sprawls melodramatically into his ergonomic, non-tasering chair at his desk, feeling betrayed, but Pepper only rolls her eyes. 

"You've been played, Tony."

"I _know_ ," Tony whines, because yes, he _is_ smart enough to know that nothing in SHIELD happens by coincidence, thank you, if only because Fury is possibly the most anal-retentive control freak in the history of mankind, forever amen, and he knows bait when he sees it, but still. Still.

Damn Coulson.

Damn _Fury_.

" _However_ ," Pepper adds, thoughtfully, "SHIELD would make a great client. They're black ops, aren't they? They've got to have deep pockets."

"They're a UN organisation," Tony mutters, "If they have money, then they've got to have some sort of illegal mint in one of those 'warehouses'. Fury," Tony adds, waspishly, "Is a fucking _pimp_."

" _In any regard_ ," Pepper's voice rises a dangerous fraction, "What are you going to do? Put forward a proposal? Don't neglect the company, Tony. You're the CEO again. And you have a meeting in forty-five minutes with the Japanese. Proposing a solution to Fukushima is rather _more_ important than coming up with non-violent black ops tech."

"Is it?" Tony tries his best, ingratiating smile, but at Pepper's steely-eyed glare, he deflates. "Fine, fine. I'll be good."

"I'll schedule another meeting with Director Fury at the end of this week," Pepper decides, ever the master of the carrot and the stick, "So you can come up with whatever you need to come up with before then."

"Okay." Tony perks up. "Thanks, Pep."

"Just a reminder," Pepper adds dryly, as she steps out of his office, "Payments and negotiation are meant to be handled by Legal. All right?"

"Yes, yes," Tony waves a hand at her, distracted, as he paws his sketchpad over. He has an ongoing nuclear crisis and a potential new black ops client to settle.

II.

Sadly, Agent Blake is nowhere in sight when Tony's frogmarched into Director Fury's office at the reinforced-glass-and-titanium eyesore known as the Triskelion, and he feels vaguely cheated as he settles into the militantly uncomfortable guest chair before Fury's desk.

"What is this?" Fury arches an eyebrow, as he leaves through the scrolls of blueprints. "A helicopter?"

"Excuse me," Tony wakes up from his funk, professional pride duly prodded, "It's a heli _carrier_." 

"A giant fucking helicopter," Fury scowls, glowering at the prints, "Might as well paint it red and gold with 'shoot me!' scrawled over the side in pink."

"Oh, well, if that rocks your boat," Tony drawls, then he adds, hastily, when Fury's scowl turns thunderous, "Camouflage array, eighth page." 

"Mid-air collisions with commercial aircraft are going to be a joy to explain."

"Radar buffer, stratosphere lift, low orbit autopilot field," Tony replies promptly, "Pages ten to twelve."

"Take out an engine and it'll drop like a stone," Fury counters, though he turns the pages and looks grudgingly less annoyed. It's rather like watching a tropical storm start to lose steam, Tony realizes, somewhat fascinated. Maybe, at the end of it, if he's lucky, Fury will even smile.

And then the world would implode.

"Backup generators, emergency lift, adjustable ballast, controlled break-up," Tony shoots back, smugly. "Thirteen to fifteen."

"You've given this a hell of a lot of thought," Fury concedes, though he smirks as he says so. Asshole. "What's it going to cost me, Stark?"

"I've been told that this is a question for Legal." Pepper is going to be _so_ proud of him.

"You do me a favour, and I'll do you a favour."

"I'm sorry, what? Giant stealth helicarrier, first of its kind, isn't a favour in your books?"

"StarkTech isn't cheap," Fury shrugs. "Well?"

Several hours later, back in his office, Tony winces as he weathers the tirade. "At least I got SHIELD over as a client?"

"With the budget you've _agreed_ to," Pepper snaps, "You're effectively not charging any of _your_ time at all, Tony!"

"There'll be other projects?" Tony hedges, and when Pepper takes in a deep, sharp breath, he raises his hands quickly in surrender. "Okay. Okay. I was wrong. I should have brought you, or one of the Legal drones with me, or someone from Finance-"

"This Agent wasn't even _interested_ in you," Pepper growls, then when Tony stiffens guiltily, she continues, slowly, "Oh, _no_ , that's _not_ why this is eating you up. Tony!"

Tony squirms. He's never been particularly good with handling the Wrath of Pepper. "I like challenges. It's a challenge."

"It's going to be a goddamned challenge breaking the news of _this_ to the board of directors," Pepper retorts tartly.

"I was going to leave that to you?" Tony asks, hopefully, and at Pepper's glare, wilts. "All right. I'll think of something. We got the Japanese on board, didn't we? That's got to count for something? Yes? And if anyone's going to have an interest in any future experimental tech, it's going to be SHIELD. Right?"

Pepper seems to teeter on the verge of another explosion, for a moment, then she sighs. "All right, Tony. Just this last time. But no more charity cases."

"Cross my heart," Tony promises fervently. Fury's 'favour' had better be worth _something_. Or the Director's cabin in the helicarrier was going to carry some... surprises.

III.

Tony actually forgot about the entire matter of the favour once the blueprints were finalized, signed off, and construction started. With the plans passed down to Engineering, his part was done, and he'd gone back to the Japanese problem. Absorbed in tooling a prototype filtration setup in his lab in his Malibu house, Tony originally ignores JARVIS' prompting that he had a visitor, until the second prompt, then he'd looked up to see the security feed. 

Ten minutes later, Blake settles onto the loveseat with a coffee, while Tony goes for the couch, still slightly out of breath from the mad sprint he'd made to look vaguely presentable. Engine oil is always a bitch to wash off.

Blake had swept Tony's favourite house with a slow once-over, as though calculating strategic points and escape routines out of habit, and when he sits down, he keeps his feet flat on the ground. More of a soldier than a spy, Tony decides, trying not to appear covetous. SHIELD only took in talent. Blake had to be more than good at what he did-

"The Director told me that you could aid me with a problem," Blake begins, without any preamble. 

"I'll be happy to help you with _anything_ , Agent Blake," Tony tries an inviting smile, but it seems to fly completely past Blake. Tony sags a little. He has a healthy ego - more than healthy, Pepper would say - but this is getting a bit much for it.

"A... long time ago," Blake hesitates, "I lost something very important to me. I have searched the earth for it, ages since, but I have not heard word of its location."

Blake had an odd accent, slightly Scandinavian, and his diction was... weird. Old fashioned. Frowning, Tony prompted, "I'm going to need a lot more than that, Agent Blake. Dates. Descriptions."

"It is a hammer," Blake seems to come to a decision to trust him, his big shoulders relaxing. "Like this." He takes the weird-as-hell hammer from his belt, laying it carefully on the table. "But with a shorter handle. It would have runes on its head, which should resemble iron, but will be denser far than iron. Its name is Mjolnir."

"JARVIS?" Tony asks out aloud. "Run a name search."

"Mjolnir, pronounced _myol-n(ee)r_ , is the hammer of Thor, a major god associated with thunder-" 

"Is this some sort of joke?" Tony frowns, cutting off the AI. "You want me to look for a magic hammer?"

Blake visibly bristles. "It was not my intention to _jest_. I seek Mjolnir, and if you cannot or will not help me, then I will leave."

"Whoa, whoa, wait, slow down," Tony says hastily. "I was surprised, that's all. It's not everyday that someone tells me that unicorns exist."

Blake frowns at this, as if trying to decide whether or not Tony is being sarcastic, then he shrugs. "Very well."

"So, how long ago did you lose this? And where?" 

"I know not where," Blake looks distant for a moment, then he adds, "And it should have come to Earth at the same time that... I lost it about a hundred years ago. Likely, its descent would have seemed akin to a falling star."

The sarcastic jibe sits on the edge of Tony's tongue, but something - self preservation, maybe, Pepper would buy a lottery ticket if she ever knew - made him swallow it down. "Sorry, could you wait here for a while? I need to make a call."

At Blake's nod, Tony sidles off to his soundproof lab, where he sighs and says out aloud, "JARVIS, get Directory Fury on the line. I don't give a fuck if he's in a meeting or having heart surgery or anything, make it happen."

"Affirmative, sir." There's a short pause, then JARVIS brings up an image of a freshly scowling Fury on the main console panels. 

"Stark. What the fuck do you want now?"

"Director. I'm in the rather dubious position of having to tell you that... either your agent who's currently sitting in my living room needs a really _thorough_ psych evaluation, or maybe I do, and-"

"He asked you about Mjolnir?" Fury cuts in, blithe, like he's discussing the _weather_.

"Yes, _and_ , he sort of hinted that he lost it a hundred years ago, and-"

"And you called me over this?" Fury growls, frowning irritably. "Stark. Blake isn't the only 'immortal' I know, all right? They tend to be mutants, or they've poked around in some things that they shouldn't have, shit like that. He's certainly one of the more _stable_ ones that I know, and he's a good agent. So I'll prefer that you have your close-minded little freak-out somewhere without interrupting matters of international security."

"I think your eyepatch looks absolutely _fantastic_ today, Director," Tony trills, with his best, syrupy-sweet smile, just because he can, and Fury seems to be seriously considering ordering an air strike of some sort at Malibu before the connection gets cut off. A little sheepishly, Tony slinks back upstairs, where Blake's finished his cup of coffee, and seems to be going through one of Pepper's copies of the Economist with an expression of amusement.

Because Tony's always straight to the point, he states, "Your boss says that you're immortal."

"I have fought alongside his father," Blake shrugs, setting the newsletter aside. "And his grandfather before that. I owed him a favour." 

"Wow," Tony says, fascinated despite himself, if only at the thought that this means that Fury must at some point have been a harmless little baby creature, and not, as Tony had previously surmised, some sort of advanced cyborg from a parasitic future that had terminated the definition of humour. "Usually family heirlooms are tacky and slathered with gilt. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone inheriting a person before." 

Blake smiles tolerantly, as if he'd heard this before. "So will you help me?"

"Sure. It's going to be tough, but I've got some ideas." JARVIS could probably do some computations on star falls in the rough period of time, then they could probably compare it with a global frequency on unusual emanations. "I'll let you know if I come up with anything."

"Then I am in your debt, Mister Stark." Blake rolls to his feet, in one delicious motion of easy grace, and strides over to grasp Tony's hand.

"It's 'Tony', big guy," Tony tries his best smile again, leaning over to clap Blake against one huge bicep, and Gods, he could probably hammer iron against all that hard muscle. He tries manfully not to salivate, but Blake merely nods at him, making as though to pull back his hand, then he frowns, tipping his gaze down, as though noticing the glow of the arc reactor for the first time.

"That... device," Blake hesitates, tilting his head, and now he pulls his hand away, only to bring it up, fingers outstretched an inch away from Tony's shirt. "May I?"

"Uh." It's a weird request, especially from someone without curves and lipstick, but Tony swallows and nods. "Go ahead."

Blake touches the tips of his fingers gently to the glow, and Tony blinks as he sees the agent's face grow soft, as though caught up in an old memory. "You cage lightning over your heart."

"Not particularly accurate, but poetic." Tony's heart seems to be beating faster and faster, and embarrassingly enough, he's starting to flush like a schoolgirl.

Awkward.

And _very_ strange. It's not exactly as though he's a new hand at this sort of game, and they haven't even gotten to the heavy petting. "Looks cool under the shirt, looks like Modern Frankenstein without," he adds, and he's babbling now, sweating, his mouth dry as Blake hums something and drops his hand away.

"Modern Frankenstein?"

"Ugly. Scar tissue everywhere." Surely an immortal couldn't be totally blind to popular culture.

"I doubt very much that it is ugly, Man of Iron," Blake smiles, warm and soft, _friendly_ , with none of that weirdly distant amusement, and that's really it, Tony thinks, a little dazed, as Blake nods at him and heads towards the front door. He's officially obsessed.

IV.

Blake's like a ghost - he's never around whenever Tony decides to 'drop by' the Triskelion with updates on the helicarrier construction. He does, however, randomly show up at Tony's Malibu house, usually unannounced, laughs off Tony's repeated offers to give him a cell phone, and, for some reason, usually also shows up with utterly random samples of the previously unknown-to-Tony strata of food groups known as greasy cheap take-out and slabs of beer. 

Tony ends up programming a Blake-exception into JARVIS' security sequences, lays off on any unnecessary jet-setting, much to Pepper's amusement, and spends a futile two months trying to change Blake's set-in-stone dietary inclinations. The man seems to like quantity more than quality. It's depressing, and then it isn't. Maybe immortality causes you to lose your taste buds.

JARVIS collates reams of data, but just like Tony originally extrapolated, winnowing it down is going to be an insane task, even with the world's best AI. He doesn't mind, though. He likes the company, even if Blake's just in it for the favour. Other than that first odd spark of interest in the arc reactor, Blake doesn't touch him again, and just like the take-out, at first it's depressing, and then it isn't.

It's kind of like making... friends, which is a new thing for Tony when money or a political favour isn't involved. Granted, a magic hammer was involved instead, but somehow, it seemed... different. Maybe because Blake was clearly disinterested in kissing ass and unimpressed by his money - whenever the Agent drops by, they just have bad take-out dinners, decent beer, and either watch random DVDs or talk. Blake's patient with tech-talk, and Tony learns to be patient with astronomy. 

When you live outside time, the light of distant worlds, distant starts, probably holds far more curiosity than most, and Blake seems to be happy to talk about distant worlds endlessly. Once, though, after a few beers, Tony asks him about Mjolnir and the old Nordic concepts of nine realms, a little facetiously, and Blake starts, stops, frowns to himself, and grows silent. Tony doesn't ask again.

He also learns that Blake-no-preferred-first-name also likes brainless action movies, or fantasy epics; he seems to prefer spicy Asian take-out over pizza and beer that's bitter and dark, outside of his Agent-face, he laughs easily and loud, and around Blake, crazy as it is, Tony feels _normal_. It's weird. 

And it's new.

Tony usually likes new things. 

It doesn't last, though. He's tempted to ask JARVIS to slow things down, but it's not fair to Blake, and eventually, when JARVIS finally triangulates Mjolnir in some remote corner of Mount Esjan, in Iceland, of all predictable places, he's really rather sorry when he puts a call through to Fury. 

By the time he placates Pepper enough to take time off from the intricate set of negotiations that's been ongoing with the South Koreans, and flies over with Happy in the private jet, SHIELD's been impressively busy - a huge compound's been set up, and it's buzzing with activity. Coulson's eyebrows crinkle down a little when the agent meets him at the perimeter gate. 

"Where's Blake?" Tony asks, when they're waved through the outer perimeter.

"He's-" Coulson actually hesitates, which probably means that the world's going to end this year after all, "I'll show you." 

Coulson pretends not to hear any of Tony's questions, all the way until they've circled around and fucking around into the centre of the main tent, and what Tony sees in the opening makes him blink and start forward, ignoring Coulson's grab for his arm.

SHIELD's excavated a neat little crater around a primitive-looking hammer, the dense, blocky head a deep storm gray, etched with intricate sigils. The leather grip around the oddly short handle is rotting away with age, and the rock around it's long crept moss and heather over its blackened traces. 

"Jesus." Tony doesn't like magic in any form, really - scientists love the unknown, sure, and the new, but Tony can sense that this is something _more_ than just metal and wood and rotting leather; it _feels_ older than anything he's ever seen, alien. Still, if SHIELD's built up a perimeter... "It's embedded into the rock?"

"Can't be moved." Coulson materializes back at his elbow. "We're running tests." 

Tony shudders, then he shakes himself. "Where's Blake? I thought he'd be camping right next to this thing. Hasn't he spent a century looking for it?"

"Here." Coulson steps over the thick cables running around Mjolnir to a sensor array, disappearing down another rabbit-hole of temporary walls, into a small cube of a prefabricated room off the side. Blake's slouched in a chair, his eyes unfocused, like he's staring far off into the distance, past time itself, and Tony finds himself shuddering again, gritting his teeth as he lets himself into the room. It feels like something _other_ has reached past the human part of his brain into the monkey bit buried right at the root, and made all of its hair stand on end.

"Well," Tony says into the silence, when Blake doesn't even look up at him, and that kinda hurts, a little. "This is jolly. Like a jail cell."

Blake exhales, closes his eyes, and the hands he has twisted in his lap uncurl. The skin on his palms are reddened and scraped, almost bloody, like he's been hauling against an immovable object. "My exile continues," he mutters, as if to himself, then he clenches his hands again. "And I have just heard that my father is dead."

"Well, uh, if you've been alive all this while, your dad's probably-"

"Peace, Anthony," Blake cuts in, and he looks up, finally, his eyes wild, haunted. "I would have _silence_."

Tony blinks at the harshness in Blake's words, then he bristles. It's a knee-jerk reaction that he's never particularly grown out of, not even at his age and with Pepper's patience, and he folds his arms, drawling, "Well, popular legend - meaning Wikipedia - indicates that Mjolnir happens to belong to Thor, doesn't it? So there's no real use crying over spilled milk. Or an unmovable hammer that isn't really yours."

Blake's a big man, and he usually moves with all that unhurried grace, but _now_ , he's up and in Tony's face in an instant, and Tony yelps and jerks forward a whole step as a hand clenches in his shirt and drags him over. Blake's jaw is clenched tight, and in the corner of his eyes Tony can see the watching SHIELD agents tense up; Coulson even starts forward - and it takes Tony a long, shocked moment to realize he's being _kissed_ , a big hand curls around the back of his neck and a demanding mouth presses hard over his, and he freezes up, plain astonished, until Blake pulls back, teeth bared.

"If you think you're just going to-" Tony snarls, leans up, and twists his hands into Blake's stupidly long blonde mane and slants their mouths together, and this isn't really how he's ever thought about going with the Plan to Get Into Agent Blake's Pants, as Pepper's ungracefully put it before; not this raw thing scraped tight over Blake's open anguish. The kisses slow, though, then Blake takes an unsteady breath between them and gentles them, curling his big hands around Tony's waist instead and licking into his mouth.

"Forgive my tone," Blake murmurs against his forehead, a palm pressed flat over the arc reactor, tender, as though reaching to touch the light within it. "A great favour I owe you now, Anthony Howardson. And I do not forget my debts."

 _Your name is not Blake_ , Tony thinks abruptly, taking in a sharp breath, as the pieces slot finally into place - when you've ruled everything out, after all, whatever remains, no matter how impossible, has to be true, especially if it's been staring right into your face since the beginning. 

"Thor," Tony names him, in a whisper, and Blake - Thor - smiles at him, and it's painfully wry, twisted through with regret.

"No. Not any longer."

V.

Thor's understandably reluctant to leave Mjolnir, and eventually, Tony gets bored of hanging around hassling unsuspecting SHIELD scientists, opting to return to New York. Besides, Pepper's language over the phone had been getting progressively unladylike, to say the least, and luxury accommodation in Reykjavik isn't really what Tony's happily used to. Besides, he misses his lab. 

Days go by, then weeks, and at the beginning, Tony's rather irrationally annoyed that Thor's stepped out of his life just as everything had started to get interesting, then he gets over himself. He can guess around the edges of what happened, and he reckons that Thor has far more on his plate than worrying about one short-lived mortal's bruised feelings.

See, Tony can be mature. Pepper would be so proud.

Still. It takes more than a month before Tony stops jerking to his feet whenever JARVIS announces a visitor, and grudgingly, Tony settles back into his old routine. If it's rather more empty that he remembers, he supposes that he should have known better, anyway. He takes long drives out with the Reventon or in the Mark VII, tinkers viciously with Dummy, and works on the Mark VIII with a vengeance, padding things over with plasters made of enforced normality - or whatever passed as normality in Tony's life, anyway.

And so Tony thinks he probably should be forgiven for yelping in shock when Thor closes a palm over his shoulder, one day, when Tony's bent over his work bench studying thermocyclic arrays. Thor grins at him, openly amused, and Tony belatedly remembers that he's never told JARVIS to override the Blake exceptions. 

"Oh, hey," Tony manages, rather stupidly, "Figured out the problem already?"

"Mjolnir remains in SHIELD's care," Thor shrugs, and the pain seems to be gone, at least, "I thought to see to my debts instead."

Tony does, in fact, have a conscience, which tends to royally fuck his life up whenever it appears - the last time it did, he'd reworked his entire _company_. Now, it prompts him to babble, "Look, I probably would have done it for nothing. You don't have to owe me, and-" 

Thor seems to have decided on kissing as his chosen way of shutting Tony up, and Tony has to admit that it works, sort of. It's unhurried, this time, but hungry, and Tony's dimly aware that he probably stinks of machine oil and industrial lubricants, he's been awake for nearly twenty hours now and... and then Thor bends him back over the space next to the arrays and _moans_ and all right. Tony has no further objections.

For someone with such big hands, Thor's deft with them, stripping Tony down to his shirt efficiently when Tony's still clutching at his shoulders and whimpering into Thor's mouth, but he's nothing if competitive, and he finally manages some motor control when Thor pushes big hands up the hem of his shirt, pushing it up. Tony growls, grabbing frantically at Thor's wrists, but it's like trying to push down a wall; Thor simply ignores him, up until the ugly whorls of scar tissue are stretched out under the harsh light of the lab.

Thor hums again, a rumbling sound that has little humanity in it, then he glances up, and seems to see something in Tony's face that gives him pause, making him frown. "Anthony," he starts, then as Tony squirms, trying to drag down his shirt, chuckles - fucking _chuckles_. "Scars are marks of honour, _svass_ , not shame."

"Not these kind," Tony mutters, but he lets up, and shivers when Thor presses his thumbs over the ridges of tissue and strokes. 

He can't feel it, he doesn't have much sensation there any longer, but Thor's expression is reverent, curious, and Tony feels like he's been pared bare under the exiled God's eyes, as though Thor is sifting through every inch of him, assessing him, and an age and more away, Tony would have snapped something sharp with resentment. Now he waits, though it isn't comfortable in the least, his shoulders pressed over the cold work bench, breathing in, slow, and out, until Thor hums again and bends his head, to brush a kiss over the cold light of the reactor. Tony exhales, letting out a breath in a stutter that he hadn't remembered holding, and Thor smiles up at him, warmly, and licks down Tony's twitching belly to where his cock's just starting to take a proper interest in the proceedings.

Thor's confident, at least, and hell, he's _practised_ , as much as the knowledge feels like a special kind of blasphemy; Tony's ankles dig down over big shoulders and he arches with a hoarse groan as Thor swipes his tongue greedily over the head of his cock and swallows him down, one smooth, wet glide all the way to the hilt, and just as Tony dazedly thinks that there's _no_ way this could get any better, Thor makes that rumbling sound deep in his throat, and he shouts. 

Big hands press his hips firmly but gently down against the table as Thor starts to methodically take Tony apart, working him to the edge with _Gods_ that brilliant tongue and just the rasp of teeth and fuck, Tony's going to have an epic case of beard burn in the morning, and he's going to deny ever promising Thor the world and everything in it if he could only _come_. Tony's heart feels like it's trying to start out of his chest, his breath heaving in sobs, and it's not even like he's never had a blowjob before, fuck, he's losing words, his babbling trailing into a shallow series of gasps that ends in a long, loud yell when Thor swallows him down abruptly and presses a dry thumb against his hole. He'd never thought it was possible to come that hard. 

When he stops gasping for breath, Tony manages to prop himself up on his elbows, watching as Thor grins at him and unzips his pants, and wow. Well. "You know," Tony muses, hoarse and impressed, "I actually think that I don't have any condoms that will fit you."

Thor snorts at him, hauling him up to the edge of the bench in an easy drag and pull, and licks down his chin, nuzzling, rumbling again as Tony belatedly puts his hands to use, wrapping his fingers around that gorgeous cock and squeezing, as Thor bites down on his neck, over his pulse, and comes with a choked moan when Tony pushes eagerly up into his mouth.

VI.

Somehow, it's not particularly surprising that Thor has no apparent worldly possessions of his own, and that his clothes, weapons and everything else had been more or less unobtrusively supplied by at least three generations of Fury. Or Furies. Not even Coulson makes a comment when Thor seems to decide abruptly to move in with Tony, and Tony mentions this once, to Thor, over a semi-awful dinner of Thai take-out. 

Thor somehow manages to look shamefaced. "I was in a berserk rage when Mjolnir did not respond to me. I may have breached Fury's trust."

He doesn't say anything more, though, and Fury's closemouthed and irritable about the entire matter. Apparently Mjolnir's a sticking point - literally and figuratively - with the Icelandic government, which naturally wants to declare it some sort of new tourist attraction, despite the fact that ancient magical artifacts never went hand-in-hand with public safety. Thor doesn't seem to have an opinion, whenever Tony brings it up, even if his eyes occasionally go distant. 

Other than that, Tony settles into things rather more comfortably than he'd thought - Thor gets along well with Pepper and famously with Happy, never gets into Tony's way, and is easily entertained. Perfect.

Still, sometimes during a bad storm, Tony would come up from his lab and find Thor sitting in the balcony, in the rain, watching the lightning fork over the horizon. There's always something poignant and infinitely lonely about it all, and he usually leaves Thor to it, sneaking back down to tinker with Dummy until the storm breaks. 

Today, however, the lightning's getting closer than usual, and Tony's pretty sure that Thor isn't invulnerable to being flash fried by lightning. A century of humanity has written its own due in marks over Thor's skin, after all.

"Hey," Tony edges to the balcony, until he feels the edges of the lashing rain. "It's getting late."

Thor doesn't move, up until Tony grits his teeth and makes if to step out into the rain. He gets up to his feet, then, sober, and ducks indoors, oblivious to how drenched he is. Tony's taken to keeping towels stacked up by the balcony, but Thor only looks back over his shoulder when Tony pushes one into his hands.

"Once, I knew their names," Thor murmurs, then. There's a haunted look to him, as though whatever it is that's beyond time in Thor is crumbling, and Tony swallows. 

"I'm sorry."

The statement seems to jerk Thor out of his thoughts; he blinks at Tony, as though surprised, then he shakes his head and rubs the towel over his face, wrapping it around his shoulders. "Now, I am free to forget," he notes, with the hint of a wry smile, and it's Tony's turn to blink, even as Thor reaches over for him to hook him close, "And to forge better memories in their wake."

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to go about reinventing the wheel by revisiting the plot of the Thor movie. Basically though, Loki pops by only after Thor finds Mjolnir again. My original concept had time passing more slowly in Asgard, but I think it's just more likely that Loki has been more subtle this time, or he's gotten rid of the Warriors Three, maybe.


End file.
